Network attached storage (NAS) servers are becoming increasingly prevalent. NAS servers generally include local data storage to which data can be stored. The NAS servers are communicatively coupled to a communication network such that other computing devices coupled to the communication network are capable of accessing the data stored to the NAS servers. In general, NAS refers to a class of dedicated hard disk-based storage devices. A NAS server provides users with additional disk storage available (e.g., via a local-area network (LAN) or other network) through a standard network connection. In most cases, a NAS server receives an internet Protocol (IP) address, connects to the network (e.g., LAN) through an Ethernet cable, and resides on the network as an independent network device. NAS servers can also be included as part of a storage area network (SAN). Although IP is the most common protocol, NAS products frequently support other network protocols, including IPX and NetBEUI as examples. NAS servers can share and exchange files using well-established protocols like NFS or the CIFS open standard, as examples.
Thus, a NAS server may effectively provide a central repository for data that is accessible by a plurality of computing devices coupled to the communication network, which may enable improved management of data storage. For example, absent a NAS server data may be stored to ones of a plurality of computing devices coupled to a communication network, which may result in difficulty and/or inefficiency in finding the location of desired data (e.g., determining on which of the computing devices the data resides). By storing the data to a NAS server, the plurality of computing devices can all access the data from the central repository provided by the NAS server.
Such NAS servers are used not only within companies, web servers, and other traditional environments in which storage of large amounts of data is commonly desired, but are also being used within users home environments. For instance, home-centric NAS servers may be employed to enable a user to store data to such NAS server that is coupled to the user's home network, and then the user can access the data stored to the NAS server from any of a number of different computing devices that are also coupled to the user's home network. In some cases, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal computer (PC), may be implemented as a NAS server on a network. In many instances, however, the NAS server is not a general-purpose computing device, such as PC, laptop, etc., but is instead a dedicated storage server that does not include general-purpose user input devices, such as a keyboard, and/or may not include output devices. That is, NAS servers may be available that are implemented as storage “boxes” that can be coupled to a user's network (e.g., home network) and that do not include general-purpose input and/or output devices (e.g., display). Such a NAS server that does not include general-purpose input and/or output devices may be desirable for a variety of reasons, such as to minimize cost of the NAS sewer to a user, minimize size of the NAS server and/or space required for implementing the NAS server, etc.). Rather than requiring such a general-purpose input and/or output device coupled directly to the NAS server, users often use other general-purpose computing devices that are coupled to the network, such as PCs, laptops, etc., in order to manage data stored to the NAS server. That is, users generally interact with a NAS server via other computing devices coupled to the network, rather than interacting directly with the NAS server. For instance, a user desiring to store data to a home-centric NAS server may interact with a PC (or other general-purpose computing device) that is coupled to the user's home network and load the data onto the PC; and then the user may further interact with the PC to transfer the data over the user's home network to the NAS server for storage to the NAS server. Thereafter, the user may use the PC or any other computing device coupled to the user's home network to access the data stored to the NAS server.
Portable data storage media are very popular today. Examples of such portable data storage media include, without limitation, CompactFlash cards, SmartMedia cards, MultiMediaCard, Secure Digital, MemoryStick, universal serial bus (USB)-interfaced devices, etc. For example, most digital images are stored on portable data storage media that are inserted into cameras. Examples of media types commonly used in digital cameras include, without limitation, Compact Flash, SmartMedia Cards, and Memoir Sticks. A user can remove the portable data storage media from the camera and couple it to a computer that has expansion slots for reading the media, or to a photosmart printer that includes expansion slots for reading the different types of media. The data (e.g., digital images) can be transferred from the portable data storage media to the computer to which it is coupled for storage locally on such computer.
General-purpose computing devices, such as PCs, commonly include a number of different types of interfaces for receiving different types of portable data storage media, such as CompactFlash cards, SmartMedia cards, MemoryStick, USB-interfaced storage, etc. As mentioned above, NAS servers are becoming more prevalent and thus users often desire to store data to a NAS server. Traditionally, to get the data from a portable data storage media onto a NAS server, a user must first couple the portable data storage media to a general-purpose computing device (e.g., PC) that includes an appropriate interface for the portable data storage media, and then use such general-purpose computing device to select the data on the portable data storage media that is desired to be stored to the NAS server and then transfer the selected data from the general-purpose computing device over the network to the NAS server.
Accordingly, many general-purpose computing devices, such as PCs, have media expansion slots that allow the user to couple portable data storage media (e.g., from their digital cameras) to their general-purpose computing device, and then interact with the general-purpose computing device to transfer the data onto a NAS server. Generally, the user must first copy the desired data from the portable data storage media onto the general-purpose computing device (e.g., PC) as an intermediate step, and then select which data (e.g., which images) to copy to the NAS server. This has the disadvantage of being undesirably inefficient and requiring a user to move the data twice (e.g., first from the portable data storage media to the PC and then from the PC to the NAS server). In practice, difficulty commonly arises because many times when a portable data storage media becomes filled, a user will download its data onto any (e.g., randomly selected) client PC on a network, and the user may then forget on which client they downloaded particular data (e.g., a particular set of images). Other times it becomes an issue as to exactly where on that client PC the folder with the desired data (e.g., images) is located.